Perry: How to fund Women’s Health Program? No taxes. No Rainy Day Fund.

Gov. Rick Perry, on a conference call for Texans hosted by the limited-government Empower Texans, was asked if he’d rule out new taxes to pay for continuing the Women’s Health Program.

Perry has promised the state will continue the program despite the looming loss of federal funds, which are drying up because Texas has barred Planned Parenthood from participating in the program.

His response:

“There’s absolutely no reason to go into the Rainy Day Fund. There’s no reason to raise taxes. What we’ll do is we’ll go back into the programs that are at Health and Human Services. We’ll make prioritizations about what is important, what have you. We’ll find the savings in the programs that are there.”

“It was both cruel and fiscally irresponsible of Perry to turn down federal funding for women’s healthcare. Now he’s promising to inflict harm on more Texans by slashing essential state services again.”

Stephanie Goodman of the Health and Human Services Commission told me earlier Wednesday that no other programs would be scaled back to find the money needed for the program:

No, we’ll look at areas where current spending is below the level we projected. Our annual budget is more than $25 billion a year and includes hundreds of programs across the five agencies so we’re confident we’ll be able to find the funding we need for the Women’s Health Program.